Masons parade in full regalia

There was no need for rolled trouser legs or curious handshakes for recognition: the entire main street was a sea of blue, more than 700 aprons which parted to allow a procession of another 300 senior aprons, two tylers with swords, the grand pursuivant, a dozen grand stewards, four columns of marching worshipful masters, four columns of officers of the United Grand Lodge of England, two columns of leaders of masonic orders and two columns of provincial grand masters, all leading a coach and horses carrying the grand master.

"I'm a blue apron, a very ordinary master mason," Eddie Gratton said, pointing to the dazzle of passing gold braid. "Basically the more gold, the more expensive, the more senior."

From the coach emerged the grand master, the Duke of Kent, disappointingly in a plain business suit. He had come with an assembly of masons not seen in public in living memory, more than 1,000 in full regalia, to open the latest attraction at the Beamish Open Air Museum in Co Durham.

The Masonic Hall, in Park Terrace, Sunderland, was built in 1869 and was at the point of collapse when it was salvaged and moved brick by brick to Beamish at a cost of £1.5m, a third of it raised by masons.